


The Doctor And Mr. Jones

by copperbadge



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Lords and Ladies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-04
Updated: 2008-02-04
Packaged: 2017-12-15 07:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor thought he was alone in the universe -- but Torchwood is about to prove him wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Flesh And The Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Doctor And Mr. Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/286755) by [Helice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helice/pseuds/Helice)



> Greatscott7 on LJ has done a cover for The Doctor And Mr. Jones, which you can find [here!](http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb314/greatscott7/?action=view&current=TheDrMrJCover.jpg)

_What will we do if we marry a tinker?_   
_Our true lovers, what will we do then?_   
_Only sell a tin can,_   
_And walk on with me man,_   
_And we'll yodel it over again._

Ianto had always been fascinated with time. Since long before he found out Jack was a time traveler (which was _after_ he found out Jack was immortal; it all seemed rather unfair) or even joined Torchwood. 

When he was small he couldn't tell time except the hours, but he could sit and watch a clock patiently until the big hand came around to the twelve, and then he would know. And then he learned the Halves: half-seven, half eight, half twelve. After that it was just a matter of division until he discovered _seconds_. 

Seconds were great. He loved the delicate length of the constantly-moving seconds hand, how much finer and more precise it was than the clunky minutes hand and the fat, smug hours hand.

His parents told him that until he was six they worried he wasn't quite right, because of the clocks. Sometimes he wondered if he was, really.

Then when he was nine he discovered Science Fiction and all these books about aliens and machines and especially time travel. Well, there was no going back. Science fiction was where it _was_. Which meant it was where Ianto was. Even if he had to be there as the tea boy. When he drifted into Torchwood London at the age of nineteen he realised being the lowest rung on the ladder there was better than being top-dog anywhere else. Being Cardiff's fetch-and-carry man had its moments. And it had its own benefits too.

That particular night he lay in bed -- in Jack's bed -- and watched the seconds hand on his wristwatch on the bedside table -- Jack's bedside table -- as it turned round and round. It was so peaceful to watch something else ticking along in its destiny in life, a simple but important task, marking time. Ianto preferred to be the seconds hand, moving quietly, fulfilling simple duties. Even if Torchwood was not, per se, simple. _Ever._

Jack, for example. 

It was twenty-four minutes past one am. Jack's hand, which was currently lying limp on Ianto's stomach, was attached to Jack's arm, resting easily on his hip. And that was attached to Jack's body, pressed against his. In turn, Jack's body had Jack's head on its shoulders, and Jack's head was pressed in the crook of Ianto's shoulder and neck. In Jack's body were his lungs, which were expanding and contracting as Jack snored lightly. How complex a human body was.

If he took Jack to pieces it was easier to construct the whole, and anyway if he did it that way it was clinical enough that Ianto could keep all the overwhelming _emotion_ at bay. Fear and anxiety weren't so bad, he was used to those, but all this joy and attraction and arousal surely couldn't be kept down in Ianto's absurd, gangling, big-eared body. He imagined perfect-looking people like Jack and Tosh and Owen didn't need clocks and seconds hands and time-counting to keep it all in. It wasn't as silly for them. That was why he liked Gwen best -- excepting Jack, of course -- because she looked perfect and then she smiled and that huge, yawning gap in her teeth said, _this is a woman who feels your pain_.

At eight pm precisely, Ianto had been having dinner...had been having a _date_ with Jack Harkness. He wasn't sure why he was having a date with Jack, other than that he'd been asked and it had at least been a way to stop him talking about his office cubicle fetish. At nine forty-six, they had arrived back at Torchwood, and Ianto had gone to make some coffee when Jack stopped him and pulled him close and kissed him. First kiss since Jack had come back to them, nine forty-seven and three seconds.

At nine minutes past ten, Jack had threaded his fingers through Ianto's hair, after unbuttoning his shirt, and called him perfect. It was nice to be called perfect, of course, but Ianto wasn't a fool. Perhaps he filled some need Jack had, but Jack would outlive him -- and long before Ianto died, Jack would get bored of him.

Ianto could remember how it felt to hook his thumbs in Jack's suspenders (sixteen minutes past ten) and pull them down while Jack kissed him. It was a remarkably complicated operation, somehow, though he'd done it dozens of times before. 

Not as complicated as some things, mind you. Ianto wouldn't forget thirty-two minutes past ten in a hurry. He'd never -- he wasn't a virgin by any stretch but he'd never been with another man _despite what they said at school, thanks ever so_ and, well, it was difficult to connect two positive cables in biology as in engineering, and Ianto wasn't always prepared for what Jack was thinking. Maybe his -- hesitation was what Jack thought was perfect. 

Either way, Jack's hands and mouth and every other part of him _were_ perfect, and Jack knew how to use them in ways Ianto had never imagined.

At sixteen minutes till eleven Ianto couldn't help touching Jack, which meant that at eleven-oh-one Jack said Ianto's name the way nobody ever said Ianto's name and Ianto forgot how to breathe which was why he would not ever know what time it was when he bit Jack's shoulder hard enough to bruise.

"Spitfire," Jack had muttered, when Ianto looked in horror at the mark he'd left. Jack slapped his cheek lightly, which made him feel a bit more level about it. "Knew you would be full of surprises."

It wasn't rejection and it wasn't pandering to his insecurity; it was just what it was. Jack fitting Ianto's quiet ticking into his life. 

Ianto smiled in the darkness. Jack could have a watch with a century hand on it. A heavy brass century hand with a special gear to drive it. You wouldn't be able to see it move but it would always be moving, very slowly, very patiently. 

He lay in Jack's bed, Jack sprawled on him loose-limbed in sleep, and watched the minutes pass until it was time to get up (six thirty-two). And then he did, and ground the beans for the coffee and made some toast, of which Owen ate the majority before Jack was even awake. Ianto smiled on him and said nothing, which upset Owen a good deal more than he showed.

And then Ianto went out to do the shopping, which proved to be his big mistake. Because, when one is thinking about how fantastic one's life has been recently, what with the sex and the people who liked him and the annoying of Owen, one is not perhaps paying as much attention to traffic as one ought.

***

_Oh, come, come with me to the old churchyard_   
_I will know the path through the soft green sward;_   
_Friends slumber there we were wont to regard_   
_We'll trace out their names in the old churchyard._

They were not drinking. They were not exactly mourning, even. They weren't working or eating or arguing or thinking. They were just being. Jack wondered if this was how they acted when he died, that one time where he thought he'd stay dead, but only a little part of him wondered. The rest of him wondered about other, scarier things.

He was sitting at the table, one hand covering a small metal disc, nothing out of the ordinary in itself. It was just being, too, passing minutes along like any stop-watch did when you pushed the button. The tick-tock was muffled by his hand, but he could feel (or maybe it was his pulse) the movement of the seconds-hand as it ticked. He'd tried pressing the button but something was broken and it wouldn't stop ticking.

"You don't think it's going to go like that," Owen said, into the silence.

"Owen," Gwen warned, with a tilt of her head at Jack. It was kind of Gwen to think he needed protection, but Jack had lost people before, colleagues _and_ lovers. And often, as with Ianto, both. He hadn't thought any of them had really been aware of what was between Ianto. After all, Ianto was a private sort and Jack respected that privacy. He didn't see the point to keeping it from anyone that they were sleeping together, but you had to handle twenty-first-century morals carefully, so he'd followed Ianto's lead, out of respect.

Well, sort of. After all, it wasn't _subtle_ , was it, saying he'd come back for Ianto, even if he'd backpedaled a second later. But he'd wanted to be clear that it was a choice to come back, and a factor in making that choice was Ianto. 

Ianto, who was now dead.

"I'm only saying what we're all thinking," Owen said. Oh, Owen. Aggression as a substitute for any other emotion ever was Owen's trick. Maybe it worked. "I mean you don't, do you. Think about dodging the end of the world three times weekly just to get run down by a car."

It was a shock the stopwatch was still working, come to think of it. Considering Ianto wasn't. Jack's hand clenched slightly.

"He's right. I certainly don't," Tosh said quietly. 

"Pointless death confuses people," Jack heard himself say. "That's the point. It's pointless. There's nothing redeeming in -- "

He stopped and looked down at his hand again. There was a bloody smear on the back of the watch where Ianto had clenched it after begging -- pleading, if you believed the witnesses -- to be given his stopwatch in what turned out to be the last three minutes of his life. 

Ianto liked time. Made him feel safe.

"He's got no family, other than us," Gwen said. "He told me so once. Well. Not the part about us, that was more...implied."

"There's room in the freezer for all of us, eventually," Jack said. 

He picked up the stopwatch and walked out of the conference room, meaning to go to his office but ending up instead at Ianto's small, well-organised corner station. It wasn't fair; he'd hardly begun, _they'd_ hardly begun. It wasn't fair that everyone got taken away from him sooner or later. It wasn't fair that it'd been such an _ordinary_ death because that was precisely the kind of death Ianto thought he deserved, because Ianto still thought he was ordinary. 

Had thought. _Had_.

Jack didn't even realise he'd thrown the stopwatch across the room until he heard the crystal shatter. The others didn't come to investigate. But at least the stupid thing had finally stopped ticking.

***

_For years we rhymed in couplets_   
_And we sang 'em two by two_   
_Now we hardly rhyme at all, but here's a few_   
_And if they hurt, there's bullets left to bite on_   
_Don't wait up, leave the light on_   
_I'll be home soon._

Ianto woke up cold and confused and in a dark room lying not on a bed but on a metal table which was _way_ more familiar than he was comfortable with.

He tried to sit up but at first it was quite difficult because something was going wrong with his chest and his brain. It felt as if he couldn't catch the rhythm of his breath, as if his heart was going too fast. He didn't feel dizzy, though, just -- overwhelmed. 

In a second he took in everything in the room, each detail sharp like knives in his head, until he had to close his eyes. Every object still in his mind had a history printed on it, not just the nicks on the bone-saw but the way it had been built and how it had come to be and images of old woodcuts of amputations with bone saws crossed his closed eyes along with some random piece of trivia he'd picked up somewhere about how Nelson made them warm amputation saws because when he'd had his arm off he thought it was too cold -- there, he'd got that from _QI_ , hadn't he, while listening to Gwen talk about meeting Alan Davies once and Jack remarking on the superior quality of Stephen Fry's voice -- 

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and really concentrated on the sparks that danced in the darkness until he could think clearly. Very cautiously, he opened his eyes again.

He was naked, and the clothes he'd been in were bundled up in a bag under the table, cut off him by the look of it. Shame, he'd liked that tie. There was a fresh, hardly used set of scrubs in the bin near the door, however, and now was not a time to be picky. He pulled them on with hands that felt oddly puppetlike and lifted a coat from a hook outside the door. He raided a set of lockers in a nearby room until he found a pair of shoes that fit him and walked out of the hospital as if he owned it, which was the way you were supposed to escape from anywhere.

Outside, in a city he'd know since he was born practically, he had to stop and ask directions from a bus driver because the world wouldn't stop spinning. Or rather, he could feel the movement of the earth and in addition to _that_ everywhere he looked there was something on the fringe of his vision demanding his attention and in a second he might sick up.

Then he saw it -- a clock outside of a bank. A real dial clock, with all three hands. He stopped and leaned against a convenient wall and concentrated on it. And slowly the world slotted into place. He could think about what was wrong. 

Well, obviously he knew what was wrong, he was concussed and he'd just left a hospital, but the hospital clearly thought he was dead so bugger the lot of them as incompetent fools. He would go to Torchwood, where it was mercifully dark and quiet and Owen, while a misogynistic little maladjust, nevertheless could tell the difference between "dead" and "headache".

From here, it wasn't that far. All he had to do was pick goals.

He fixed on his first goal, a cafe on the corner, and began to walk.

When he got to Owen he was definitely going to have him take a look at his heart.

***

_There's eternity in your eyes_   
_The flesh and the bones they are only disguises across_   
_A world to be lost and beneath_   
_Our opinions and beliefs_

"Here. Lemme help."

Jack stood at his office door and watched Owen try to help Tosh, who was quietly sweeping up the broken glass and shards of gears from the broken stopwatch. Gwen had gone to get them something to eat; seemed to be her destiny to step into the shoes of the dead. She'd done the same thing with Suzie.

Life did go on, and generally faster than one realised.

The proximity alert went, and he turned to see the door rolling back; he was about to call out and ask Gwen if she'd forgotten something when he realised that while it was indeed someone with a dark head of hair, it was definitely not Gwen.

The man standing in the doorway looked confused and relieved at the same time. A doctor, to judge by the scrubs; not a very well doctor by the look of him.

"Stop right there," Jack said, with enough force for Owen and Tosh to look up. "Who are you?"

The man looked at him, eyes rolling a little in his head. Was he -- was he _drunk_? 

They stared at each other for some time; the man opened and shut his mouth, looking away.

"Hey!" Jack said. "I asked you a question."

"Owen," the man said, stumbling forward and tripping himself on a chair. Owen frowned. "I need your help."

"Catch him," Jack said, as Tosh came forward to prevent the chair from rolling away. "Owen?"

"I've never seen him before," Owen said, supporting the man's other arm as they half-helped, half-dragged him to a seat.

"It's concussion," the man babbled, staring intently at Owen's face. "And there's something wrong in my chest. You can fix it."

"We'll see," Owen said, holding his head still and probing the area under his jaw. Then he hesitated. "His pulse is racing. Tosh -- "

"Got it," Tosh said, dodging through the usual chaos of Torchwood and returning with Owen's medical kit. Jack watched, fascinated, as Owen took out his stethoscope and listened to the man's chest, just to the left where his heart should be...

And then, disbelieving, moved it across to the right. 

"He's got to be an alien," he said. "Either that or I can't fix whatever's wrong inside you, mate."

"Do you know him?" Jack asked, more sharply than he intended.

"I told you, not from Adam," Owen said without looking up.

"Does he have two heartbeats?"

Then Owen did look up. 

"Why would you ask that?" he asked.

"Does he or doesn't he?" Jack asked. He could feel his hands shake; losing Ianto and discovering the Doctor in the space of a day was a little much.

"Yeah, he does," Owen said, defiantly. "That mean you know what he is?"

Jack didn't even remember moving from his office to the chair, only that he was crouched in front of the stranger, trying to make him focus on his face.

"Doctor?" he asked.

"What?" the man said.

"Doctor, is that you?"

"Is it?" the man asked, confused. "I thought -- "

"They were out of chicken tikka masala so I got you fish and chips," came a new voice. Gwen appeared in the doorway carrying a large plastic sack full of greasy cartons. "What's going on?"

"Gwen!" the man said, struggling up against Owen's restraining arms and shaking him off like a puppy. He stumbled over to her, the other three watching in amazement. "Gwen! Hi!"

"Hallo," Gwen said cautiously.

"Gwen, do something for me. Please?" the man asked. Gwen cast a wary look at Jack, who nodded and straightened, slowly putting himself behind the stranger.

"All right," Gwen said, shifting the sack to her left hand. 

"Smile for me?"

"What?"

"Just -- smile. Please," the man said. 

Gwen obligingly smiled, though it looked more like a grimace. The man beamed.

Then he passed out.

***

_Sisters, brothers, to all others_   
_Let that be our guiding star;_   
_Hearts on fire but no Messiah,_   
_Hear the music from afar;_   
_What we sing is what we are._

It was quiet in the TARDIS. The engines were silent and the lights dim; the Doctor had left the ship to drift for a while, and there was no need to brighten the whole place when it was just him at home. Besides, the dark was pleasant.

Lately, more and more, he felt exhausted at what used to energise him. He had begun to wonder if he was feeling his age. It was terrible, sometimes, to be over nine hundred years old and trapped in a body that's maybe thirty-five at most. Not as terrible, on the other hand, as being nine hundred years old and trapped in a nine hundred year old body. He'd had quite enough of that.

He was enjoying the last of the take-away New Chinese food he'd picked up in 6950; the whole planet of New China was obliterated somewhere in the early eleven-thousands but the savoury duck was always worth a quick jump back. He'd always meant to go back and avert that destruction, actually, but the rarity of the food somehow made it taste better.

The Doctor never worried that this was perhaps a callous attitude to take with a few million lives. There was still the chance to save it if he wanted. You couldn't spend all your time fixing all the heartbreak in the universe or you'd just burn out. And besides who was he, the xenocide of Arcadia, to try and save anyone else?

He knew secretly that these were all lies; they were designed to ease his mind over the fact that there was a time he would gaily have sailed in and saved the world, but now he was _tired_.

Christmas always got to him. Especially since it seemed to happen so often. Not to mention so _violently_.

He shoved the curved corkscrew chopsticks into the bowl, plucking up a sliver of meat and transferring it deftly to his mouth. It was a sad sort indeed who couldn't enjoy a spot of take-away now and again.

He dug around a bit for the chunk of saltrock in the bottom of the rice. You were supposed to lick it and then take a bite of duck, but the Doctor had alien tastes and very good teeth. Generally he crunched the saltrock up like a sugar lump --

The chopsticks were halfway to his mouth when it happened. A synapse fired. It was one that hadn't fired in a long time.

"Oh," said the Doctor.

Then he flung the chopsticks and food down on the table and the saltrock went flying, skittering across the floor as the Doctor pulled his feet down off the console and leaned forward. He checked a few readings, twisted the second knob on the left, kicked a lever with his foot, and ran up the engines so fast that the TARDIS jerked sideways in protest before complying. It moved so fast even the Doctor felt a tug, but that hardly mattered. He looked for the source of his unrest, the origin, and locked on, then kicked the TARDIS into motion.

He checked bearings again and called up the location of the coordinates he'd entered unthinkingly --

"Oh," he said again, and then, "Bugger me. Why is it always Earth?"

***

_I got an invitation to go to a funeral_   
_But to my sad misfortune, now, the fellow didn't die_   
_The manager, he said he was vexed at disappointing us_   
_But he apologised, "and might we let the thing go by?"_

"I'm telling you, I don't know who he is. Why don't you bother Gwen, he knows her too," Owen said, readjusting the arm of the subcutaneous scanner.

"Because you're here," Tosh said, angling a camera over the unconscious man's face. She snapped a photo, plugged the camera into her laptop, and set to work.

"Or Jack," Owen added. "He seems to know what kind of alien it is. He might even know its name."

"He's not an it, Owen."

"Bugger you, Tosh."

"Anything yet?" Jack asked, appearing at the railing above the medical chamber.

"He's still alive. _Both hearts beating_ ," Owen said sullenly. 

"Tosh?"

"His fingerprints aren't in any database internationally, and his DNA isn't even proper DNA," Tosh said. "It's like he doesn't...exist..."

She stopped, because they all saw the knowing look on Jack's face.

"But you expected that, I imagine," she continued, typing commands into the computer. "I'm running facial recognition software now. If there's a digital photograph of him anywhere, it'll find him."

"D'you want to tell us how you know about him?" Gwen asked, leaning on the rail next to Jack.

"He might be an old friend," Jack said. "That's all."

"A doctor," Owen said.

"Doctor who?" Gwen inquired.

"That's the question." Jack inhaled. " _The_ Doctor. My Doctor."

"Might be?" Owen asked.

"He...changes. His...face," Jack said, looking overwhelmed.

"Jack," Tosh said. "I've got some partial matches. You're not going to believe them, though."

She turned the monitor around so that they could all see. There were four photographs. One was obviously a candid photo and the other one was blurred and grainy and sepia-toned. The last two were familiar photos. 

Of him. And Ianto.

Owen glanced back at the man on the table. "He does look a bit like Iant -- "

"Shut up," Jack replied. 

He couldn't deny what Owen had said, however. The man had the same high cheekbones and long face, the same lips and nose; his hair and forehead were a bit different, the hair lighter and longer than Ianto's. Jack glanced at the images on the screen. The candid photo looked like it had been taken when Ianto was much younger; he was smiling and saluting the photographer with a pint of beer. 

Jack touched the trackpad of the laptop, pressing one of the buttons as the mouse hovered over the photograph. It called up a webpage.

"Ianto had a _myspace_?" Gwen asked. Tinny techno music began to play through the speakers on the laptop. Tosh pressed the mute button. 

Jack clicked back and selected the other photo, the sepia-toned one of himself. A scanned and archived newspaper article about V-Day showed him, in his RAF pilot's uniform, from the second war. He closed it as Tosh took out her phone and began to dial a number.

"Can you wake him up?" Jack asked Owen. Owen shrugged and pulled back one lid, shining a light into it. He nodded, prepared an injection, and pushed the needle into a convenient vein.

The man on the table snorted and arched his back suddenly, eyes opening. Owen moved to restrain him but, before he could, the man grasped him by the lapels of his coat with one hand. 

"Owen?" he asked, through clenched teeth.

"Yeah," Owen said, gasping for air.

"Where's Jack?"

"Right here," Jack said, approaching the table. "Why don't you let Owen go?"

"Am I fixed?" the man asked, releasing Owen and looking from one to the other. 

"Jack," Tosh said, holding up the phone. "I've just spoken with the hospital. The body's missing." She swallowed. "Do you think..."

"That's not Ianto," Gwen said.

"What body?" the man asked, pushing himself up. "I _am_ Ianto. Stop messing me about, Gwen."

He swung to one side, dropping to the floor. He was built like Ianto too, a trifle shorter perhaps. 

"Jack," he said, steadying himself and straightening. "Jack, you recognise me, don't you?"

Jack wasn't certain what to say. For once in his life (a very long life) he was wordless.

"It's me. Why are you staring at me?"

Tosh silently pressed a makeup compact into his hand. He looked at her, brows drawing together, and then opened it. 

"What've you done to my _face_?" he asked, staring at his reflection in the little mirror.

"That's _not_ Ianto," Gwen said. "It's -- it's some alien pretending to be him."

"I am not," the man looked insulted. "You're Gwen and that's Tosh and Owen and this is Jack. I can prove it! We're in Torchwood and my desk's right over there -- " he flung one arm out. Powder from the compact spilled onto the floor. "I am! Ask me anything!"

"What's the lock code for storage ninety-six?" Jack asked.

"Two twenty four."

"He could have got that from the computer," Gwen said. "If he can read minds, or if he's gotten into the system -- "

"Protocol nine?" Jack asked.

"Telecom lockdown and electrics reboot for the lower level."

"What time is it?"

The man lifted his wrist, but there was nothing there. He stared at it, panicked, and began to hyperventilate.

"I don't know -- I don't -- "

"Owen?" Jack said. Owen slid his watch off his wrist and passed it over. Jack shoved it under the man's nose. He clutched it tightly and stared down at the face, his breathing slowing. After a moment he pulled Jack forward slightly and leaned in to murmur something in his ear.

" _Spitfire_ ," he whispered. Jack felt a thrill echo through him that was _completely_ inappropriate. He gripped the side of Ianto's head and steadied him.

"What do you remember?"

A look of horror spasmed across the man's -- across Ianto's -- face.

"Everything," he said.


	2. Easy As Sleep

_Salt fare, North Sea, weird stare_  
 _Further than the eye can see_  
 _He had a head like a toy shop_  
 _Bow-legged stance off_  
 _Must've been the rolling sea_

Normally, in such cases, Ianto would produce food and coffee and even place settings without the others thinking about it. That was the way things worked. He'd reached the point where it was hardly a conscious thought even for him, which was why it was deeply upsetting for him to see Gwen ransacking the cupboards for paper plates and Owen messing about with his coffee machine and Tosh setting out a package of sugar instead of the sugar-bowl. When the coffee was set in front of him in the meeting room he added an extra spoonful of sugar, and smiled a little to himself when the others tried theirs and grimaced. 

Jack did not serve; Jack sat in the seat next to him and held onto his hand under the table. Experience told Ianto that this was quite normal for Jack but a twentieth-century upbringing told him that he was being an _enormous girl_. Still, he didn't let go.

"What happened?" Jack asked softly, while the others sipped their coffee. Ianto smelled some toast burning in the other room, but he didn't have the energy to bother with telling them.

"I don't know," he said. When he drank his coffee he could taste the chemical composition of it, the acids and bases at work, which was distracting -- but not as distracting as things had been a few hours before. He was slotting things into their proper places almost as soon as he noticed them now, so the entire history of the carafe on the table (including the company that made it) slid into a little cubbyhole in his brain as it appeared. Tosh's mum's telephone number, chance-seen once when helping her with her tax, vanished away just after he looked at her. He glanced down at Owen's watch, now strapped to his wrist. "Sorry," he added, disctracted. "What?"

"How much do you remember?" Jack said. "Start with this morning."

Ianto felt that he ought to blush, but his cheeks stayed cool. Every single intimate detail of waking up -- sliding out from under Jack's arm, peculiar shyness about being naked in his room, the outline of Jack's body under the blankets and the desire he never concieved of feeling for another man -- all of it cropped up in his mind and then faded away.

"I made breakfast," he said haltingly. "Owen ate all the toast."

"Bugger, the toast," Owen said, as the others apparently began to notice the smell. He ran to the toaster just outside the room and popped it up, disgustedly dropping two charred slices of bread in the trash.

"We were almost out, and we needed transistors and a new doorknob for the coat closet and -- " he paused. He'd thought Jack might like some oranges, and he'd wanted to please Jack and show him that he was glad for last night. "Some food and fruit and things. I got some money from petty cash and went out. Didn't bother with the car."

Nine-twenty-two, bought doorknob at hardware store. Nine forty-five, bought oranges for lover. The hilarity was just now hitting him.

"I was coming back to Torchwood," he continued, trying not to laugh. "Had a bag in each hand. I think the light changed and I just...I was thinking about something else and didn't notice and there was this noise." It wasn't quite so funny now, really. "Stupid. You don't think it's going to go like that."

"That's what I said," Owen put in. Gwen kicked him under the table.

"My head hurt." Ianto looked at Jack and saw an almost physical grief, something that seemed to blur the edges of his body. So much grief, pent up but near to overflowing. Surely it wasn't all for him, and even as he thought it he saw other faces, heard other names, people he didn't know but Jack must have. It was nearly unbearable, all the loss and sadness, and it was his fault for triggering it all.

Jack looked away. The names faded. "What then?" he asked, and Ianto saw that this was another test.

"I ended up on the pavement. My stopwatch -- " he paused. "I could see it, it fell out of my pocket." 

He could see it, lying next to a broken bag of bread, the white insides of the bread spilling out like guts. An orange rolling past down the incline of the street. 

"Where is it?" he asked, abruptly. "I asked for it. I had it. Do you know where it is?"

The others looked at Jack guiltily.

"It broke," Jack said. Tosh rose and picked up a small plastic bag in the corner, offering it to him. Inside were a few twisted bits of metal, a lot of glass, and about half of a remaining stopwatch. The back had popped open.

"Then nothing until I woke up. Ran away from the hospital and came ho -- here," Ianto corrected himself. "I thought Owen could help me. The idiots at the hospital didn't even know I was still alive."

"You weren't," Gwen said. "We identified your body. Earlier today. Tosh did every test she could think of."

Ianto looked down at the watch. He let a full minute pass while he collected himself.

"But I'm here," he said. "And I look...different. So...what's happened?"

Jack gripped his hand so tightly it hurt, then let it go.

"We'll find out," he said. "For now, you stay here. Owen?"

"Tests," Owen said, turning to Ianto. "Come on."

"Tosh, check out the hospital. Gwen, crime scene, have a look around, find the car. I'll talk to the driver."

Ianto wanted to feel nothing but gratitude and love for Jack for protecting him, for implicitly making him feel safe and there and _Ianto_ , but the impulse disappeared in the wash of memory -- every time Jack had ever given orders in that way, sending them all about the business of setting things right. Every single time he'd done it, all of them passed through his consciousness at high speed, and he found that without wanting to he had analysed them and judged Jack a good leader. The gratitude was there somewhere, but it was buried under the knowledge that Jack was a smart man doing the best he could and would probably solve this, though not without some margin of error. Ten percent, on average. Pretty good odds actually.

Ianto was not happy with himself. Not with his new stupid floppy hair or the face he didn't recognise or the way his mind now worked. It was a relief to follow Owen and submit to his tests and only have to concentrate on the needles in his skin and the swab under his tongue.

***

_I stole California from the Mexican lands_  
 _Fought in the bloody Civil War_  
 _Yes I even killed my brothers_  
 _And so many others_  
 _But I ain't marching anymore_

Time Lords were not by and large _entirely_ telepathic; when he was a child (so long ago now) there had been an order of religious women on Gallifrey who honed their telepathy and built no mental walls, which drove them ritually mad and was not bad entertainment of an afternoon, at least according to some. He'd seen them once, and once was all he ever needed. 

Still, all of them possessed some little degree of connection, and the Doctor knew that he had stumbled over another Time Lord, winking into existence. How, he didn't know; perhaps a rift from Arcadia. He'd always theorised that it could have happened, but it never _had_ , so the point was moot.

He made the leap from 6950 to 2008 mid-journey, tapping some solar radiation to slingshot himself back a little more quickly. It wouldn't be as precise, but it would halve the time he had to wait and he'd only be off by a week or month at most. This close he could feel the other man, and it was a man, feeling mainly pain and confusion. The Doctor wondered how much the other could feel his thoughts. 

He didn't think properly like a Time Lord, this one. More like a small child, an infant almost. The Doctor remembered his eldest son, the way he'd been afraid to touch the infant's mind when he was born and how he'd had to be shown how to soothe the confused little head into peace. Hours he had spent, holding a child that he could hardly believe was his, gently straightening out the thoughts one by one until the boy would sleep. 

He hadn't thought about that in a long time. His eldest had been somewhere around two hundred when he fought at Arcadia, in the same division as the Doctor's sister and brothers. His daughters had fallen to Daleks long before, and his granddaughter was probably on Gallifrey when it burned.

He shut the thoughts away. That was done now, cinders and space-debris.

The closer he got, the easier it was to lock into the location of the Other. He hadn't expected Great Britain, precisely, but he wasn't surprised when he was able to narrow it to the little island. Nor was he shocked when he set coordinates for Cardiff. 

It would be good to see Jack again, and he could use the help of local collaborators. Especially since the TARDIS was beginning to show other ships closing on Earth. The energy expended from a regeneration was tremendous; even the rumours that Earth was under the Doctor's protection could not frighten away the hungrier jackals of the skies.

"I'm coming," he said quietly, wondering if he'd be heard. "Sit tight, lad. I'm coming."

***

_I don't care who started it_  
 _Just stop all the noise_  
 _I can see you're two_  
 _Very overtired little boys_

Night had been falling when Ianto returned to Torchwood, and by Owen's watch the sun should have set before the team even went out. Outside it was dark. You couldn't even see many stars, until you got a few miles outside of Cardiff.

Unbidden, images of the stars filled his vision -- familiar constellations and strange ones too. To dispel them he looked down again at Owen's watch. He ought to give it back to him, but he'd no idea where his had gone.

"Sorry I've stolen your watch," he said from the exam chair, while Owen piped chemicals into various tubes. 

"It's cheap and crap. Keep it if you want," Owen said, not looking up.

"You believe it's me, don't you?" he asked.

"I -- believe you think you're Ianto," Owen answered. "People aren't always who they think they are."

"I know that."

"So, do you believe you are?" Owen asked.

"Yes."

"Well, that's nice," Owen said absently, shaking one of the tubes. "Whoever you are, you aren't human."

"Is that why it's so hard to breathe?" Ianto asked. Owen tilted his head.

"Can't get enough, or can't inhale?" he asked. "Is there any pain?"

"It's just -- like I'm off-rhythm," Ianto stammered. 

"Well, that might be because you have two hearts," Owen said unsympathetically.

"What?"

"And your blood is not type A, B, AB, or O," Owen added. "Wholly new type. Computer can't even identify it. Congratulations. You have type I blood."

"For Ianto," Ianto smiled slightly.

"No, for _idiot_. You walked in front of a car, you berk," Owen said, tossing his pen down on the counter.

"I didn't do it to annoy you," Ianto said, stung.

"No, you just didn't _not_ do it."

Ianto's initial reaction was to stammer an apology, but a certain clarity of thought he'd never felt before shoved different words out of his mouth.

"So it's my fault, getting smashed up by a car?"

"Yes! Maybe! You know what is your fault, Jones? _Jack._ Do you know what it's like to take Jack to the hospital and watch him identify a body? Ever have to do that when you were Mr. Torchwood back before Canary Wharf? Jesus, doesn't anyone ever stay _dead around here!_ I had to drive them because Jack wouldn't talk and Gwen was a wreck and after all that you show up here -- "

"You've a little brother, haven't you."

Owen's head snapped up. "What the _hell_ does that have to do -- "

"You sound like a brother. Like you think little brother Ianto can't look after himself."

Owen's face crumpled, which Ianto had been aiming for but hadn't thought would be quite so easy to achieve. It felt as if he knew where all the levers were...

"Sorry, Owen," he said, ducking his head. 

"Yeah, well. What'm I supposed to do, right? I could care less about you, but the others've gotten attached."

"Oh, have they," Ianto asked, amused.

"Bugger off. I have work to do."

Ianto climbed out of the chair, shooting a sidelong glance at Owen to make sure he was all right before he left. And, because nobody had said anything about him being fired even if he was dead, he tidied the meeting room, poured out the cold coffee, rinsed the carafe, and sat down at his computer. 

It helped to do the little tasks. 

***

_For the forging of words_  
 _Comes easy as sleep_  
 _Stones for Smith and Taylor_  
 _Their memories to keep_

The Torchwood team began to reassemble slowly, late at night but in good spirits -- or at least better spirits than they had been in. This was what they lived for, the chase, the discovery, and even if they had discovered nothing yet...

Jack had struck out with the driver of the car, a pretty young man who was traumatised by the accident and terrified that Jack had come to arrest him. He'd spent more time reassuring him than he had questioning him, and anyway the kid didn't know anything. Tosh had helpfully straightened out some paperwork at the hospital regarding the demise (or lack thereof) of Ianto Jones, and Gwen turned up blank at the accident scene. Owen had plenty to say, but most of it was a knot of confusing test results and alien physiology.

Poor Ianto had tidied while they were gone, found a spare suit, and answered all his emails. As they gave their reports he sat at one end of the table and didn't say much. His right hand rubbed the watch on his wrist more or less constantly. If he wasn't Ianto he was doing a damn good job of impersonating him.

"All right. We've covered our bases. Let's reconvene tomorrow and we'll do some research in the archives. I have one or two starting points," Jack said. "Go home, get some rest."

They filed out, Gwen stopping to touch Ianto's shoulder -- half-reassurance, half probably to see if he was real. 

"Means you too," Jack said, when they were gone. "You look tired. Resurrection hurts. Trust me, I know."

Ianto nodded. A lock of hair fell in his eyes and he brushed it away, annoyed.

"Unless you want to stay here tonight," Jack suggested. Ianto looked up at him. "Just -- to sleep, I mean. Nothing else. Except if you want..." he trailed off, grinning. "That sounds awkward, huh."

"Stay with you?" Ianto asked. Jack didn't know how to read him anymore; he'd just begun properly understanding the old Ianto.

"Yes."

Ianto stood up and faced him, lifting a hand and then letting it fall without actually touching him. 

"You can't know I'm safe," he said.

"Yeah, but I can't be killed, either. If you're dangerous I'm the best person to keep an eye on you. And if you're not, you could use the company."

He nodded. "Yes. All right. But -- can I ask?"

"Ask what?" Jack turned his head slightly. Ianto's feet were bare below the cuffs of his suit trousers.

"You thought I was the Doctor," Ianto said softly. "Only we don't know who he is, except that you were looking for him. But I looked in the archives after you left, and on the internet. If you know where to look you can find out a lot. Like how Torchwood was founded. There was a doctor -- "

"I wouldn't know about that," Jack said. 

"And there's a time-traveler, supposedly..." Ianto said. He reached out again and did touch him this time. He rested his hand on Jack's chest.

"Just one heart," he said lightly. "Got you beat, sir."

Jack snorted. "Are you coming along or not?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm warning you," Jack said over his shoulder, as he led Ianto through the office and down the ladder. "I'm still gonna sleep in the nude."

"I'm aware of that," Ianto replied. "I think I can restrain myself."

"Are you sure I can?" he inquired, turning and stepping backwards towards the bed. He was betting on an extremely attractive look of confusion, not to be lifted half-off the ground, pressed into the nearest wall, and kissed passionately with their heads six inches from a framed map of 19th century Wales. Not that he minded.

Jack clutched at Ianto's shoulders, pulling his body closer so that they were more on a level, tilting his head to take best advantage. Ianto's teeth closed for just a second on his lower lip and the whisper from earlier came back to him; _spitfire_ , in a hoarse voice and hesitant, hoping for recognition. 

Ianto leaned back, slightly. They were both breathing hard.

"I'm sure you'll do your best, sir," he said. 

"Yes," Jack said, swallowing. "Okay."

Ianto eased the jacket off his shoulders and draped it carefully across the back of the chair, following with his tie. Jack stayed where he was, because the shirt came next, and the angle and set of Ianto's lovely shoulders hadn't changed. He came forward while Ianto was undoing the belt, and kissed the back of his neck. 

"Is it strange?" Ianto asked. Jack slid his hands down Ianto's arms, helping him with the waistband of his trousers.

"What?" he asked, nipping one ear.

"Different body," Ianto shrugged against his chest. "And -- well you'd only just got used to the old one."

Jack chuckled. "I wasn't even _started_ on the old one. Turn around."

Ianto twisted his body, taking only a single step. Jack took his shoulders again and evened him out.

"I don't have to live in it," he said. "You do. So -- what do you want, Ianto?"

The other man looked longingly at the bed. There were circles under his eyes. Jack smiled and shoved him towards it.

"You're not a rent-boy, you know," he said, as he undressed. Ianto was lying on his side, looking very young and unprotected, taking off Owen's watch and propping it on the table. "Neither am I. I don't take a fee for sleeping here."

Ianto nodded against the pillow, still watching the clock. Jack climbed into bed and curled up, his chin on Ianto's shoulder. He slid his hand along Ianto's hip and up, around his shoulder, to pin him in place. By degrees, the strange body with its familiar double-heartbeat relaxed.

Jack had felt the Doctor's heartbeat enough to recognise it, even if it was only a handful of times and never in bed; he could have wished, and bringing Rose along would have been fun, but a Time Lord was above all that. Or the Doctor was at any rate. The Doctor could change his appearance; the Doctor had two hearts, but he also had a razor wit and a brain that Jack would admit put his own to shame. And Ianto had never had a double-heartbeat before. Jack ought to know.

"I'm not him, whoever he is," Ianto said into the silence, and Jack remembered that Time Lords could read minds if they wanted.

"I hope not," Jack replied. "Bastard left me with a broken heart and a case of immortality."

"You can have one of mine," Ianto yawned. Jack curled his fingers against his skin.

"Keep them. Never know when you might need a spare," he murmured, as Ianto's breathing slowed and the ticking of Owen's cheap, crap watch filled the room.


	3. Our Doom And Pride

_Down behind the terraced houses_  
 _In between the concrete towers_  
 _Compost heaps and scarlet runners_  
 _Secret gardens full of flowers_

At six fifty-five in the morning Ianto was making the coffee and putting on the first kettle of the day. The day, in fact, after the day he'd died.

Dying had not bothered him as much as his own stupidity, in all honesty. Twelve-sixteen pm, offered his heart to his immortal time-traveling employer. Twelve sixteen pm and nine seconds, employer declined. Ianto knew it hadn't been meant that way, but he was still staggered by his idiocy. What on earth had he been thinking? 

They still had no bread, and the oranges were still a good idea. He'd rather not be there when the others arrived anyway, because the whole thing was so dreadfully awkward. So, he scribbled down a quick list of what they needed, signed some money out of petty cash, and hesitated on his way out the door. He returned to his desk and scribbled a note to tape to the inner door.

_Went out._  
 _Buying groceries._  
 _NOT rampaging, murdering, building machine to end world, etc._  
 _Back by nine._

_I. Jones_

He ran into Gwen in the entryway, which figured. 

"Morning," she said. "Going out somewhere?"

"Yeah -- we need bread. And a new watch," he added, holding up his wrist.

"I haven't had breakfast yet, have you?"

"No..."

"Right! I'll come with you," she said, with the false cheer of someone who didn't trust him not to set fire to the first stranger he met. Still, he wasn't planning anything and Gwen was oddly reassuring, as a person.

They walked across the Plass and into Cardiff proper in silence, Ianto with his hands in his pockets, Gwen toying with the cuffs of her coat. Not much was open this early except for the little shop that he was going to; Gwen browsed the magazines while he made his purchase. His maths hadn't failed him, anyway. He was already counting out the correct change while the clerk was still ringing it up.

"No cheap watches from the grocers' for you?" Gwen asked, as they left.

"No. There's a pawnshop round the corner, they have some decent pieces," Ianto said. 

"Is that where you got your stopwatch?"

"I've had that old thing for years. Worked pretty well, but it wasn't anything special. Don't want to owe Owen anything, is all. He'd bring it up next time I got sarky with him for something."

Ianto pushed open the pawnshop's door, gesturing for Gwen to go first. There was a lick of movement on the edge of his vision; he turned in time to see someone duck back behind the edge of the building.

"Someone there?" he called. No reply. He waited a second more, then followed Gwen into the shop.

He was familiar with the pawnshop, in part because it sold a lot of old machines that were useful when repairing various things that went wrong around Torchwood. When you needed pieces from a radio from the sixties, you couldn't just mail-order it from Amazon, delivery to Torchwood care of Ianto Jones, after all.

There was a cheap sales rack at one end of the store with sunglasses, bracelets, hair clips, and wristwatches hung on it haphazardly; Ianto inspected them carefully while Gwen tried on sunglasses. He didn't bother to point out that she didn't know where those earpieces had been before they went behind her ears. 

There were plenty of broken ones, plenty of incredibly ugly ones, and plenty of womens' ones; working for Torchwood you tended to shop for durability, waterproof materials, and ease of cleaning. He also wanted one with a stopwatch function; it seemed strange to him now that he'd never bothered to simply buy a wristwatch with a stopwatch function on it. Eventually he turned to Gwen, offering her two options. One was a large brass frame with a white face, stopwatch hand, and leather strap; the other had a metal-link strap, two watch faces, and a calendar dial. Tough decision. Details were important.

"Which one?" he asked. "D'you think, I mean."

She considered them. "This one," she said, tapping the one with the leather strap. He liked it better too, but it didn't have a calendar dial. Then again, things would have come to a pretty pass when he didn't know what day it was.

Ianto purchased it and they walked out of the shop into a Cardiff that was waking up, the streets filling and the shops opening their doors. They stopped and bought croissants, though Ianto would have been happy boiling an egg back at Torchwood. Gwen broke hers into tiny pieces and ate it as they walked, taking the long way round to the Hub. She spoke a little more freely now, as Ianto tested the tightness of the leather band on a wrist that was inexplicably different from the one he'd had before. He half-listened; as fond as he was of Gwen, it was hard to be at all interested in her relationship with Rhys, who was in Ianto's opinion beneath the notice of any intelligent woman.

Then he felt something, an almost physical tug, and he halted. Gwen stopped too, breaking off mid-word.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Dunno," Ianto answered. He turned east and felt the tug again, almost like a hand on his elbow if the hand was invisible and intangible and his elbow was in his brain.

That hadn't made much sense, but not much in Ianto's life did these days.

Across the street was a small overgrown child's park, the most excellent kind of child's park with rusty playsets and giant rocks to fall off of and a thousand health risks begging to be explored. It was hemmed in by high hedges and shops and looked like nobody'd played in it for years. There were two swings, a go-round, and one of those geodesic frameworks for climbing on. Quite a large one really. 

"D'you see something?" Gwen asked, peering at the park.

"No..."

He started to cross the street -- carefully looking both ways this time -- but even as he stepped off the kerb sparks exploded to his left. 

Ianto turned before he thought about it, shoved Gwen back into an alley and pulled an orange from the bag he carried, throwing it up at the angle the fire had come from. There was a fizzing noise and a crash as he darted into the alley himself. Gwen already had the Hub on her earpiece and was calling for backup.

He peered around the corner of the building, but there didn't appear to be any airborne laser snipers. In fact...

"Ianto!" Gwen tried to grab his sleeve as he walked out of the alley, but he hardly noticed. Lying on the sidewalk was an oddly-shaped cone of metal, with prongs sticking out of the side. "Ianto, you're going to get shot!"

"I think I killed it," Ianto called back. He nudged it with one finger and, when it didn't electrocute him, picked it up. Exhaust plumed from the base of the cone like some kind of final exhalation. There was a tremendous dent where he'd pegged it squarely with the orange. It must have been knocked into something.

"Ianto," Gwen said, as the air filled with humming. And metal. At least two dozen flying cones filled the air, no bigger than a loaf of bread but viciously spiked. "Ianto, I think maybe you should put down the -- "

"OI!" Ianto cried, holding up the cone. Some daft instinct was urging him onwards, saying _if you're going to go out in a shower of sparks from a small army of flying megaphones..._ "YOU LOT! ONE MOVE AND THIS ONE GETS IT!"

He pointed to the shopping bag at the alley mouth. "AND THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM! SOD OFF THE LOT OF YOU!"

They seemed to hesitate. A few turned slightly, as if consulting each other.

"I MEAN IT!" Ianto shouted, shaking the one in his hand for good measure. 

At first he thought the roaring noise was the sound of the SUV that he could see approaching, but then he realised it was dozens of little engines firing up. Even as the SUV skidded to a stop and Owen threw the door open, gesturing for them to get in, the cones took to the air and disappeared. The one in his hand made a sad, spitty little noise. He tossed it to Tosh and clambered inside after Gwen.

"That was _brilliant!_ " Gwen said, as Jack floored the gas. 

"What the hell is it?" Owen asked, leaning into the front seat where Tosh was to study the small metal device.

"Why'd they leave?" Jack asked, leaning over the dashboard to peer up into the sky. "Where did they go?"

"The bread!" Ianto said suddenly, turning to stare out the back window. They turned a corner and Ianto nearly fell into Owen's lap. "We left the groceries!"

"Never mind the damn groceries!" Jack said. "What happened? Why did they leave?"

Ianto glanced at Gwen, who was suddenly fascinated by the back of the driver's seat. She looked like she was trying not to giggle. All things considered, there was plenty to laugh at; Ianto could just picture how ridiculous it looked for a man in a business suit to be throwing oranges at tiny alien gunmen...

Then he was trying not to laugh with relief, and he glanced at Gwen and she sniggered.

"What's so funny?" Owen asked, sandwiched between them.

"What did you say?" Gwen asked. " _Oi, bugger off home_?"

"No, no," Ianto managed, choking back insane laughter. "I said -- oh, god, Gwen..."

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the back of the seat.

"Oh _god_ ," he said, more serious now. "I said, _One move and this one gets it._ "

He breathed deeply for a few minutes until he felt sane, then leaned back and looked at Jack's reflection in the rear-view mirror. Jack gave him the most appraising stare he'd felt since they were first introduced.

"Then he told them there was more where that came from," Gwen said, wiping her eyes. 

"Well, that was stupid," Owen said.

"Incredibly stupid," Ianto agreed. 

"But it worked," Tosh said.

"Let's get it back and see what we can make of it," Jack said. 

"Did you get your watch?" Gwen asked Ianto. He pulled back his sleeve to show her, then reached into his pocket, offering Owen's watch back to him. "Cheers, Owen."

"Yeah, whatever," Owen said, putting it on. "You're mental. I say that as a doctor."

"They went away, though," Ianto said, more reflectively now. 

"From now on," Jack said, "nobody goes anywhere alone. We don't know what they are. Ianto, you're on hold while we deal with them."

"I'm very much behind us finding out what tried to kill us, sir," Ianto said. Tosh had managed to pry the base of the thing open. The smell of charred flesh filled the air, and she closed it again quickly.

"I want you on watch when we get back, Ianto. Owen, clearly _something_ died in there."

"Teeny tiny Xenopsy," Owen agreed. Then he jerked forward -- they all did -- as Jack brought the car to an abrupt halt.

They had almost reached the Hub, could see it from where they were in fact, but there was something in the street. Technically, probably, some _one_.

"Tosh," Jack said.

"Searching database now," Tosh said, keying words into her handheld.

"Blimey," Owen said. "That is one ugly alien."

"He's an Energy Baron," Ianto said, as the computer files scrolled past his eyes from memory. "That's right, isn't it, Tosh?"

"Still looking..." Tosh clicked a button. "He's right, Jack."

Jack was in a staring contest with the yellow, reasonably humanoid figure in the street. It had spikes all over its head and dangling from those spikes were floppy, bedraggled green feathers.

"Friendly?" he asked.

"They're in the files by hearsay. Supposedly they're merchants. They sell power systems and fuel."

"So we've been stopped by an interstellar petrol man?" Owen asked. 

"Not nice people," Tosh said. "And this one's armed."

The alien reached around his chest and pulled a small, curved blade from a sheath on its arm.

"Oh seriously?" Jack said. Just then, the alien flicked the blade gently and a curved beam of blue light sheared his side-view mirror off. 

"Give me the Time Lord!" he called.

"Everybody got their seatbelts on?" Jack asked. They gave quiet affirmatives. Ianto braced his hands on the seat. 

Jack threw the car into reverse and they sped backwards up the street, chased by flashes of blue light. Ianto turned around, watching the traffic behind them.

"Jack," he said. "on my word turn the wheel clockwise."

"Ianto, you'd better know what you're doing."

"Wheel, sir, clockwise -- NOW."

Jack turned the wheel and the SUV skewed around.

"Forward gear!" Ianto called, as they barrelled backwards towards a lorry. "Forwardgearforwardgearforwardgear!"

The car slammed forward.

"Defensible position! Who's got weapons?" Jack called as they sped away.

"I have an idea," Ianto said quietly. "Turn right, ahead."

"If you go left we can bunker in near the abandoned warehouse," Owen pointed out.

"Ianto, what's your plan?"

"Not as good as that one, actually."

"How many guns have we got?"

"Three handguns..." Owen leaned over the seat to rummage in the back. "Two missile-launchers and some alien thing with whirring blades we took off that busker last week."

The alien had caught up with them and had a straight line again; the back window of the SUV cracked inwards.

"And _he's_ got a jedi light sabre," Owen added.

"O-kay," Jack said, and turned right. "Ianto, make up a better plan. _Fast._ "

"When I say stop, turn the car sideways. You can defend behind it. Stay with the car until I call," Ianto said, unbuckling his seatbelt. 

"Ianto, don't you dare -- "

"Not giving myself up," Ianto answered. "Loyalty much appreciated. Stop!"

Jack skewed the SUV sideways expertly, and Ianto leapt out the door as the tyres hissed and creaked. The park he'd been about to investigate was ten feet away; the car was taking the brunt of the alien's attack, and he ran past the go-round and the swings without a second thought. He probably looked utterly mad, but he was certain --

He grasped a bar of the climbing-set, kicked the corner of another with a gesture so old he must have learned it as a child, and pulled. The bar swung out and, with it, an invisible door just tall enough to admit a human. Inside he could see lights and wood paneling.

"COME ON!" he shouted. He saw Owen's face in the rear hatch window, and then the lot of them poured out of the car, Jack firing for cover.

"Winged it," Gwen said as she ran past him.

"JACK!"

Jack scrambled out the driver's-side door and bolted past the car. Ianto followed him in, pulled the door shut, and nearly fell down steps he hadn't been expecting. There was a thud on the door, then silence.

Ianto stood at the top of the stairs and looked around, awed. 

The room was more or less a large dome; it had a high arching ceiling with shiny wooden beams, a handful of doorways, and a platform in the center with a raised circular table surrounding a column that went into the ceiling. It had the feel of a place where no-one had been in a long time. 

It felt so much like home that he shivered.

" _What the bloody hell is going on?_ " Owen demanded. "Why didn't anybody tell _me_ about the secret bunker in the middle of downtown?"

"It's not a bunker," Jack said, walking to one of the screens embedded in the table. He touched it lightly and it turned from black to a bright grey. "It's a space-ship."

"It's a lot bigger on the inside," Owen observed.

"They usually are," Jack murmured. Ianto descended the steps slowly, tracing his fingers along the brass railing. At the end was a brighter spot where someone had rubbed a high shine on it. He touched it, a memory on the tip of his tongue.

He crossed to where Jack was working at the monitor.

"Do you want to tell me now what I am?" he asked, low and intense and suddenly _angry._

"No," Jack retorted, without looking up. "I want to get rid of the homicidal alien who might try to slaughter civilians. I think I remember enough..."

The others crowded around as he worked, turning dials and flicking switches and keying information into the screen. Eventually, a small window appeared, showing the alien pacing around and around the climbing-dome, slicing a band of light at it occasionally. Against the hull of the ship, the light did absolutely nothing.

"Come on back around," Jack whispered. "That's it. You saw the door. A little closer...go on, you know you want to."

They watched as the alien stepped back and let loose with a flying kick against the frail-looking structure. His toe seemed to stick and he began to convulse; just as his black, knobbly tongue began to protrude from his mouth, Jack flicked another switch and he collapsed to the ground.

"I'll go tie him up," Gwen sighed.

"I'll help," Owen said. "This is giving me the crawling creeps."

Tosh was exploring the rest of the central table, marveling at the gauges and dials encrusting the surface. Jack stepped back, pressed his hands to his eyes, and sighed.

"How did you know what to do?" Tosh asked.

"Luck," Jack said.

"He's been in one before," Ianto corrected. Jack looked up at him. Ianto could see the words in his head so clearly..."He's lived in one before. It's called a TARDIS. But it's not _your_ TARDIS, is it, sir?"

"It's not the one I knew," Jack said, returning to the monitor. "The one I traveled in was...different."

"Is this what time agents use, then?" Tosh asked. Jack laughed.

"No. It's alien technology. It's -- to discover a TARDIS...it'll be an amazing step forward for Torchwood. The technology is incredible." Jack touched the table, looking troubled. "Possibly too fast a step forward."

"How'd you get in?" Tosh asked, looking at Ianto. He frowned. "How'd you even know it was here?"

Fortunately there was a thunk on the door that let them know Gwen and Owen were waiting. Ianto opened the door and held it for Tosh and Jack. Jack paused in the doorway and looked at him.

"A Time Lord," he said quietly. "A Time Lord has two hearts, and once they traveled throughout the universe in ships called TARDISes that could span space and time. They protected things that were good and beautiful. They died. All but one."

"Your Doctor," Ianto said.

"This isn't his ship. It's probably yours," Jack said. He glanced at where the others were waiting by the car. "So maybe two survived and somehow you...forgot. More than that I honestly don't know, Ianto."

He walked away and Ianto pulled the door shut after him, the TARDIS disappearing into the image of the playset. 

***

_We have fed our seas for a thousand years,_  
 _For that is our doom and pride,_  
 _As it was when they sailed on the Golden Hind,_  
 _Or the wreck that struck half tide_

The skies over Earth were practically bristling with ships by the time the Doctor arrived; most of them looked as if they were waiting and watching, and it wasn't hard to scare at least a few of them off. The sight of the small blue police box was not unknown to many races and they gave it wide berth, disappearing one by one or pulling far back. The Doctor allowed himself to be a trifle smug about this.

He put down outside of Cardiff and walked into the town, taking the opportunity to stretch his legs. He hadn't really thought about what he would say; he'd been in such a hurry to get here, and now he was oddly reluctant to go the last few miles to the Other -- the only surviving Time Lord aside from himself, now that the Master was dead.

His footsteps led him to Torchwood first; the Other was very nearby, but you couldn't be too careful. He stood for a long time on the side of a nearby road, hidden from the cameras but able to see the plaza. He could taste the charge in the air; somewhere his distant relative was bleeding energy from the regeneration like a burst water balloon. Some of the predators in orbit were no doubt after the energy; the rest were probably just curious. A Time Lord was a rare thing, and an encounter with one was nothing if not an adventure.

He crossed the open plaza slowly, stopping to look up at each of the cameras in turn. That ought to be all the warning Jack needed, unless the Captain was falling off his game. Then he passed into the small front office, opened the door effortlessly, and stopped in the entryway to Torchwood.

"Hullo?" he said, when nobody looked at him. This was because nobody was there. "Anyone home? Alien on premesis."

No answer.

"Jack?"

Just the echo of his own voice, bouncing off the ceiling. 

"Bit anticlimactic, all this," he said to himself.

He wandered into the room proper, circling the desks with their primitive computers and slightly more advanced alien technology. From his point of view, it was half-laboratory, half-museum; amazing what you could do with some old technology and a little innovation. And they were so very proud of it, like a child with a new toy.

He heard footsteps above and ducked back into a nook near the entrance, pressing himself to the wall as the door slid open and the room filled with voices.

" -- to sedate him and take him down to the cells. Tosh, get to work on the tiny spaceship. Leave the body for Owen."

Jack's voice, confidently calling orders. Jack's boots on the grating of Torchwood's floor, moving him forward into the Doctor's line of vision through a tangle of wires.

"Gwen, help Owen with the body, then see if Tosh needs help. You might need the microtools, they're in storage bin nine."

Two more figures appeared, carrying a third; That must be Owen and Gwen, carrying the body. Energy Baron. Figured. Another woman followed carrying a deactivated proton blade, and that must be Tosh. Terrible name for a person. In her other hand she had a small metal cone of a make he'd never seen before, which took some doing.

"Ianto, get on the city cameras and the satellites. Watch the skies. I want to know where they're coming from. Yell out if anything shows up. I'm going to call London. We may have to have some help on this one."

A final figure passed through the door, the man Jack had called Ianto. The Doctor inhaled sharply but softly; the man didn't notice, just strode to a desk piled high with computer screens and began tapping commands into a keyboard with one hand, working a complex joystick with the other. He moved like a Time Lord, even; no hesitation, not a gesture lacking confidence. He studied the monitors with a tilt of his head, his hand leaving the joystick and reaching into the shelf for something -- 

Oh. A handgun. An real internal-propulsion barreled lead slingshot. _Adorable._

"I can see you," he called, aiming the toy at the Doctor unerringly. The others looked up from their tasks. "Come out. NOW!"

"All right, all right, don't shoot," the Doctor said, holding his hands up slightly and stepping away from the wall. "Unarmed, me. Don't bite either. Well, not people anyway."

"How'd you get in?" the Other demanded.

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said.

"What?"

"Picked the lock. Look, this is a _huge_ misunderstanding," the Doctor said. "I'm a friend of your Captain Jack. He'll be _very_ annoyed if you shoot me. Not as annoyed as I'll be, but still, seriously put out. You know how he gets. I'm here to help -- "

"HEY! I gave some orders, down there," Jack called from an upper level. "It's not tea-time with the Quee -- "

He stopped as he took in the tableau; the Other holding a gun on the Doctor, the rest of his team closing slowly around the Other.

"Hi Jack," the Doctor said, waving one of his upraised hands slightly. "Just introducing myself, not to worry. Nice digs."

"He was hiding behind the Lithonic Scale Inverter," the Other said.

"Wow, is that what this is? I've never seen one up close," the Doctor said, turning to examine the wires. "Brilliant. Where'd you get it?"

"Boot sale," Jack replied. "You can put the gun down, Ianto. He's harmless."

"Well, I wouldn't say _harmless_ ," the Doctor replied. He lowered his hands as the Other eased the safety back onto the gun and Jack came down the stairs at a pace that was only just short of embarrassingly fast. He brushed past the rest and the Doctor found himself enveloped in Jack Harkness's fierce, affectionate hug. He patted one shoulder reassuringly. 

"Are we glad to see you," Jack said. "What the hell's going on?"

"Wish I knew. Getting a lot of visitors, are we?"

Jack stepped back. He looked good, but also tired and worried. 

"Two this morning alone," Jack answered. "Got any idea how we sedate an angry Energy Baron?"

The Doctor glanced at the unconscious form lying on the table nearby. He walked over to it, tugged on its feathers, and gave it a ringing slap across what passed for its face. Its eyes opened.

"Listen you," he said. "This is _my_ planet. I've already run off your mates. Hop it or you'll feel more than the back of my hand."

The Baron's eyes widened.

"S - Sorry," he said. "Sorry sir. Didn't realise, sir."

"Off you go."

The Baron tapped a sequence of numbers into his armband with shaking hands and promptly teleported. The Doctor turned to see the humans -- and the Other -- staring at him.

"Well. I'm knackered. Long journey, et cetera. Tea would hit the spot..."

"I'll put the kettle on," the Other murmured, and the Doctor watched in amazement as the humans all let a Time Lord wander off to make them some tea.


	4. A Worthy Man

_Where angel's footprints mark the land_  
 _Where castle rocks and towers high_  
 _Kneel to valleys wide and green_  
 _All my thoughts are turned to you_  
 _My waking hope, my sleeping dream_

The Doctor, for all his chatter, did not miss a beat; he watched Ianto as he made the tea and handed out mugs, passing through Torchwood to the various stations -- Tosh and Owen carefully probing the metal cone, Gwen collating satellite images, Jack tapping out messages to London. They stopped near Jack, and the Doctor leaned on the railing.

"These are your people, then," the Doctor said, sipping his tea. 

"Yeah!" Jack said, looking like a proud father. Ianto smiled to himself. "This is Gwen Cooper, formerly of the South Wales police...Toshiko Sato, our computer specialist..."

"If this is the Doctor you were talking about -- " Owen began, and Jack slapped him on the back so hard he couldn't continue. 

"Dr. Owen Harper, our resident medical man, and Ianto Jones, general support."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Ianto said politely.

"Ianto Jones. Wow," the Doctor said. "I mean, could you be _more_ Welsh? What's your real name?"

"That...is my real name," Ianto said, perplexed. 

"No, but really."

"Really, Doctor. Ianto -- Ianto Meredith Jones," Ianto said.

" _Meredith_?" Owen asked, looking like the teasing would _never end._

"Ianto's been with Torchwood Three since Canary Wharf," Jack said significantly. The Doctor frowned. "He was in London before that, with Torchwood One."

"But I was born and raised in Wales," Ianto added.

"How old are you?" the Doctor asked.

"Twenty-five, sir."

"How long've you been human?"

Ianto blinked. "Until two days ago, all my life."

"Nah, that can't be. Don't you remember?" the Doctor asked.

"Remember what?"

"If I could ask a question -- " Owen began.

"Shh," the Doctor said. Ianto grinned. "Have you changed your appearance recently? Had any kind of...er, terminal encounter?"

Ianto looked to Jack for permission. Jack nodded.

"I was killed," he said. "Obviously not permanently, but it _changed_ something."

"Chameleon Arch," Jack said softly.

"Can you fix it?" Ianto asked.

"You _are_ fixed," the Doctor said. "Well, sort of. You must've been human for a long time. Let's see...sit down."

Ianto sat. Jack, he noticed, circled around to stand behind his chair, practically radiating protectiveness. The Doctor sat also and turned his chair, facing them.

"May I?" he asked, holding out his hands. Ianto nodded, leaning forward. Fingers touched his face, light and cool. The Doctor's eyes were dark and bottomless; Ianto found himself unable to look away. 

"This might hurt," the Doctor said, and then the world went away.

Not away, not quite; it wasn't so much that everything disappeared as that it changed. Ianto saw silver and red first, forming themselves into something approaching a landscape. There was a man there, pointing over his shoulder, leaning down as if Ianto were quite small.

"Gallifrey," the man said. "Ga-li-frey."

His hand moved, indicating a sparkling orange city in the distance. "Home."

"Gallifrey," Ianto breathed, and there was an enormous commotion.

"Did you hear that?" the man demanded of someone in the distance. "He said Gallifrey!"

"Yes, all right, we're all very impressed by the boy," someone else said. "About bloody time he started to speak."

"Dad!" the man said. 

"Well! I have fifteen grandchildren and not one of them has been as much trouble as him."

Ianto turned his head to see a white-haired man in an enormous, resplendent collar, reclining on a chair on the hillside.

"He's going to be a genius," the first man said.

"Every father thinks that. Go on, give him back to his mother. The war doesn't stop just because you've had a son."

Ianto felt himself lifted, a nauseating feeling but short-lived. The world tilted and twirled and reformed itself again, and now he was sitting inside the ship they'd been in earlier. People were rushing around in a panic and he wanted to get up and try to help, but a strap held him in place and it was very hard to move. 

A woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes knelt in front of him. She held up a silver object -- his stopwatch, the one he'd had forever. 

"Keep it very safe, my love," she said. "Some day you'll understand."

She set it into a panel on a machine that hadn't been there when they were in the ship that afternoon, and a strange metal chandelier began to descend. Ianto instinctively tried to duck away but the strap held him fast and then the world was filled with so much pain...

***

_There's two buried 'neath the stable floor_  
 _At the well below the valley-o_  
 _Another two 'neath the kitchen door_  
 _At the well below the valley_  
 _Two buried beneath the well_  
 _The well below the valley-o_

When Ianto said _Gallifrey_ , Jack crouched to be nearer to both men; when they both began to scream, he and Gwen separated them almost immediately, pulling them apart without hesitation. The scream was not by far the worst Jack had ever heard, having served through the trenches, but it was definitely in the top ten. The others came racing up the stairs.

Ianto covered his face with his arms, hands clenching his hair, and whimpered; the Doctor rocked backwards, horrified surprise on his face.

"You were a _child_ ," he said. "Why would they do that to a _child?_ "

"You hurt him!" Owen said, trying to pull Ianto's hands away from his face. 

"Memories," the Doctor said. "I didn't do anything to him. Someone else hurt him."

Ianto was breathing heavily; Jack tried to press past Owen but the other man wouldn't move.

"Ianto. Ianto!" Owen said, struggling with him. Ianto's body uncurled, slowly, and Owen pulled his hands away.

"No wonder you think like a human," the Doctor said, as Ianto lifted agonised features to him again. "You can't have been more than five. They -- " he looked up at Jack. "They sent him away. They locked him up in a bit of machinery and sent him -- through the rift. Somewhere he'd be safe."

Gwen was standing back now, watching anxiously; Tosh, next to her, held the open metal cone in her hand. Jack picked up his own cup of tea and held it to Ianto's lips, pleased when he drank.

"He'll be all right," the Doctor said.

"No thanks to you," Owen retorted.

"Who're you, his dad?" the Doctor asked. Jack saw a flash of defiance in Owen's eyes.

"Did you find anything?" Jack asked. The Doctor nodded. "What?"

"There was a war..." the Doctor said. "Our war. You know which."

Jack nodded. He did know; the horror of it was unimaginable, incomprehensible, but he knew there had been a war.

"My people -- " the Doctor glanced at Ianto. "The Time Lords and the Daleks destroyed each other. I thought there were no survivors..."

"There were survivors," Jack said. Cold filled him. He remembered the Dalek survivors. He remembered them killing him for the very first time. 

"It must have been near the end of the war. It must have been desperate," the Doctor said. He looked at Ianto again. "Your mother hid you. She masked you and sent you here. To safety. Such as it is."

"So what, he's Superman now too?" Owen asked.

"Hm?" the Doctor said. "He must have been very young. Fitted himself in somehow, grew up. Joined up."

"I've seen his file," Jack said. "He's talked about his parents. He wasn't adopted."

"And time travel and aliens don't exist. I don't have all the answers, Jack," the Doctor said. Jack had rarely seen the Doctor annoyed, not at him anyway, and he'd _never_ heard him admit he didn't know something. "I know he's a Time Lord. The only other Time Lord. He's regenerated, which is going to draw attention. It's going to be a bum few days but..." he pursed his lips and shrugged, a move Jack knew by heart. "Should blow over pretty quickly."

Ianto took the cup from Jack's hands, giving him a grateful smile as their fingers touched. 

"And you have a decision to..." the Doctor began, then almost visibly changed gears as Tosh set the cone down on the desk. "What _is_ that?"

Tosh slid it across the desk to him. He picked it up and examined it, peering into the hollow centre.

"This was inside it," she added, holding out a plastic container with a snap-on lid. The Doctor opened it, sniffed, and lifted out what looked like a half-charred octopus.

Jack recoiled. Fear and horror filled him. He knew what it looked like; he knew what the little round-tipped cone was, and what it meant. The Doctor frowned, placed it back in the container, closed the lid, and lifted the cone once more.

"Daleks," Jack breathed.

"Drones," the Doctor replied, reaching into the cone. Something sparked and fizzled inside it. "No...more like scouts..."

He winced, grimaced, and pulled something out of the tip, offering it to Tosh. She looked at Jack, apparently wondering if Jack's reaction meant she shouldn't touch it. The Doctor offered it to her again.

"Patch it in," he said, tilting his head at one of the computers. Jack wanted to go with her, because the computer seemed impossibly far from where the rest of them were huddled, but he couldn't move. 

_Daleks._ Daleks on Earth. All of Torchwood's power was useless against Daleks. Jack was useless against Daleks. Jack had stood and fired and watched good men and women fall to protect the Doctor -- from the Daleks. He had died at the hands of the Daleks. They were unloving, uncaring, having no sense of beauty or mercy or any of the things Jack treasured in the world. There was nothing about them that he did not loathe with every atom of his being.

"How did you run them off the first time?" the Doctor asked.

"Oranges," Ianto said, still trying to control his breathing. "I hit one. Then I shouted at the rest of them. They just...went away."

"When?"

"Eight forty-six," Ianto answered.

"Right when I touched down," the Doctor said. "You didn't scare them off...there was just a new factor in play."

"Got it," Tosh said. An odd block of text appeared on the laptop, tapering like an upside-down pyramid. The Doctor didn't take his eyes from it as he stood and moved around the table.

"Marching orders," he said. "Daleks like orders."

"What does it say?" Tosh asked.

"It's a chain. Almost an algorithm," the Doctor replied. "Observe and track items of interest. Report items of interest. Track as commanded. Observe. Target."

"Exterminate," Jack finished. The Doctor nodded. Jack saw Tosh back away, and Owen reach out for her hand; Gwen moved closer as well, casting a scared look at the computer screen. Ianto shoved the plastic tub away from him as he stood, his shoulder brushing Jack's.

"Here we are," the Doctor said, either ignoring or ignorant of the fear in the air. "This subclause..." he tapped the screen with a finger. "Evacuation orders. In case I show up."

"No it's not," Ianto said, and the Doctor glanced over his shoulder at him.

"You can read that?" he asked.

"No. But I can read you. It's not just evacuation."

"No, it's not," the Doctor agreed.

"Then what is it?" Tosh asked.

"Evacuate," the Doctor said. "Regroup. And then invade."

***

_We’ve patched her rents, stopped her vents,_  
 _Dogged hatch and porthole down_  
 _Put cables to her ‘for and aft and girded her around_  
 _Tomorrow noon we hit the air and then take up the strain_  
 _And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again_

Ianto was trembling. 

He knew that Jack was far more intimate with the horrors of Dalek warfare than he was, but he had been at Canary Wharf. He knew the Daleks and he knew that deep in this new body was a born-in hatred and fear of them. They had destroyed the Doctor's race -- they had destroyed _his_ race, he supposed. The white-haired man in the collar who must be his grandfather, the woman with the bright blue eyes who was his mother -- murdered by Daleks.

The thoughts flew though his head as he busied himself with other tasks -- Gwen was speaking to the Welsh authorities, readying the civilian defence for war while Jack spoke urgently to the Prime Minister and heads of state in his office. Even Owen was frantically contacting hospitals while Tosh focused the combined power of every telescope observation-tower, satellite, and radio transmitter she could get hold of into scanning the skies for the invasion fleet. The Doctor was working at the laptop still, scrolling through the information on the Dalek scout's chip. Ianto did what he could, making sure the telephone lines stayed clear and that connections got through, transmitting emergency protocols as requests came in. His hands would not stop shaking.

He glanced across the room to see that the Doctor had cleared the screen and was accessing Torchwood now, scrolling through their arms catalogue. 

"Access the mainframe," he called. The Doctor looked up at him. "You're only reading ours. Get into the mainframe, that'll give you the other Torchwood offices as well."

"What do you have that's any _use?_ " the Doctor asked.

"Locally, only small weaponry. Nuclear warheads -- the US has more. Tosh can get in if she has to."

"Advance knowledge," the Doctor said. "And the TARDIS."

"Two TARDIS," Ianto replied. "TARDISes? Tardes?"

"Two?"

"We found one. Mine, I suppose," Ianto said. Odd to think of himself owning anything so amazing; he had still hardly got used to having a flat of his own.

The Doctor straightened slowly.

"You have a TARDIS?" he asked.

"I reckon so," Ianto said, clearing a telecom tower and dropping about fifteen hundred peoples' calls to get it open for Owen. "That's what Jack called it. I've no idea how to use it."

"I do," the Doctor said. "You will. Come on."

"But -- "

"Come _on!_ " the Doctor said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the computer. Ianto picked up his keys as they ran, shouting over his shoulder.

"TOSH! CLEAR THE COMMS!"

"Where are you going?" Jack yelled.

"To save the world! Keep at it!" the Doctor answered, before the door slammed shut behind them. The comm hooked over his ear beeped.

"Did he say to save the world?" Jack asked in his ear.

"I think so, sir," Ianto replied, still running. "Doctor! Car!"

"Looks bad, runs well?" the Doctor asked, hurling himself into the passenger's seat of the much-battered SUV.

"Something like that," Ianto replied, starting the ignition. He backed and wheeled it, tapping his comm. "Somebody clear the roads?"

"On it," Gwen's voice answered. 

"Ianto?" Jack's voice.

"Doing my best, sir," Ianto answered. "I think the Doctor has a plan."

"All right. Patching you into the Torchwood network."

"Is that wise?"

"I trust the Doctor," Jack said. Hot jealousy flared in Ianto's gut, but he concentrated on driving. " _All hands Torchwood, this is Captain Jack Harkness operating out of Torchwood Three Cardiff. We have a redcode situation. Control has been handed to Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. This is high priority over-ride, A-eight-nine-four-two. Say hello, Ianto._ "

"Sir?" Ianto asked. He knew code A8942; it overrode _everything_ , including military and police command structures.

"Few words to the troops, Jones."

Ianto took a deep breath, turned a corner, and nearly passed out. "This is Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. Status report."

"General Corcoran, Mr. Jones. Military is standing by for orders."

"American Troops Overseas are standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."

"European Alliance Troops standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."

"UNIT standing by, Mr. Jones."

"Cardiff Police standing by, Mr. Jones."

"Torchwood Two, Mr. Jones, standing by."

"Torchwood Five standing by, Mr. Jones."

"We have a Torchwood Five?" Ianto asked.

"It's really just me, Ianto."

"Melissa?" Ianto asked. Melissa used to sit two desks over at -- 

"Torchwood One forever, Ianto," she said, her voice sad and amused at the same time. 

"Copying all," Ianto said. He looked at the Doctor.

"Scramble fighters," the Doctor said.

"Military, all units, air fighters, scramble," Ianto relayed.

"Let's keep this in the air."

"Let's keep this in the air," Ianto repeated. Then they turned another corner and drove straight into a shower of sparks.

"Keep going!" the Doctor said. The Dalek scouts had assembled in front of the playground and were firing freely. 

"We'll never get through -- "

"Keep driving!"

Ianto plowed into an explosion of fire, metal clanking off the bumper and windscreen.

"Ground forces and Torchwoods, arm," he said as they bumped over fallen scouts. "Load yourselves up and get to the city centres. Prepare to defend. Three, stay on comm."

"Three standing by." Jack's voice, reassuring.

"Ground forces deployed."

"Two out."

"UNIT out."

"Five out. Good luck, Ianto."

The Doctor threw the door open and aimed what looked like a small electric torch at the cloud of smoke. Ianto drew the car to a stop.

"Get out very slowly," the Doctor said. Ianto opened his door and slid out. The scouts just hung there, silent, menacing. "Where's the TARDIS?"

"Playground," Ianto said, backing towards it.

"Ianto, we have first visual," Tosh said. 

"Every moving thing in the sky has buggered right off," Owen added. "It's hard to get a clear view..."

"It's not one big ship," Tosh said. "Oh, my god."

As they walked carefully backwards towards the TARDIS, Ianto looked up. It looked like a silver cloud was blotting out the sun.

"First visual," he said. "Dalek invasion forces are massing over Great Britain. Military converge."

"UK Military copy."

"European Alliance copy."

"UNIT copy."

"US Overseas Military, copy. Scrambling additional fighters, Mr. Jones, but it'll take some time to get to Britain."

Ianto reached behind him, kicked back with his heel, and pulled the door open. The Doctor shoved him inside and followed. As he closed the door, Ianto saw the scouts priming up their weapons. A few seconds after the door shut, there was a hissing noise.

"It'll stand," the Doctor said, running to the control panel. He kicked a few levers, twisted two knobs, and beamed. "Hello, beautiful," he crooned. "Aren't you posh. Nice to see you."

"Daleks are in the upper atmosphere," Jack said. "Ianto, what are you doing out there?"

"TAKING OFF!" the Doctor shouted.

"Did you copy, sir?"

"Copy, Mr. Jones," Jack replied. The floor beneath Ianto began to shake, and then there was a sensation of upwards movement, like an elevator. "We have visual -- Jesus, Ianto."

Ianto turned to one of the monitors, typing without thinking. An image appeared on his screen of an enormous vessel, breathtakingly graceful, incredibly sleek. Slowly, he realised he was seeing the TARDIS as it truly was.

"TARDIS is airborne," Ianto said. "Military, you will see a large object over Cardiff. I am in that object. Don't fire on us, please."

"Copy." A chorus of voices.

"Lower atmosphere!" Tosh said.

"What the hell are we doing?" Ianto hissed.

"You're piloting. Get to these coordinates," the Doctor said, pointing to a post-it note sticking to one of the screens.

"Me? What are you doing?"

"Sodding off. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you. Look for a little blue call box." The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck."

"But I don't know how to -- "

"Do what comes naturally!" the Doctor said, tapping a sequence directly onto a screen. Then he began to disappear.

Ianto was alone in a spaceship he didn't know how to pilot, with half the world's military at his command.

"Bugger _fuck_ ," he said feelingly. He tapped his comm. "Status!"

"Daleks leaving lower atmosphere." Tosh sounded tense. _Can't imagine why._

"Firing range in five," an American. 

"Fire when ready," Ianto said.

"Always wanted to hear you say that," Jack said.

"All due respect, sir, is now the time for levity?" Ianto asked, panicking as he took in just how many controls there were.

"About to die? Exactly the time for levity," Jack replied. Ianto had to admit that he heard a chorus of laughter from the fighters. 

He didn't realise he had taken grip on a circular globe in the table until he twirled it slightly and felt the TARDIS lift again. He turned it the other way and punched a button. The TARDIs responded. Ianto let go of the comm, leaving it open, and began piloting with both hands.

"Ianto Meredith Jones," came a voice, the Doctor's voice. A Time Lord. A fellow Time Lord. "You're learning fast. Are you ready to save the world?"

"Is that all?" Ianto asked. "I do that twice a week and still keep the loos stocked."

"Was that levity?" Jack asked.

"Might have been, sir. Doctor, are you hooked in?"

"Hallo, Earthlings!" the Doctor said, sounding crazed. "Below the giant thing over Cardiff you will notice a small blue box. Do not fire on that either."

"Copy, Small Blue Box."

"Where are we going, Doctor?" Ianto asked.

"Listen closely, Ianto," the Doctor said, and Ianto began to grin as he realised what the Doctor was planning.

***

_Mister Jones is a worthy man,_  
 _And to his house I brought my wran_  
 _I brought my wran to visit him here_  
 _To wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year_

The bright, sleek ship, which had twenty minutes before been a rusty child's jungle-gym, rose up through the swarm of fighter planes like a giant beetle through a crowd of gnats. There was an ever-growing sea of silver as the Dalek forces bore down on the small blue planet, intending to do two things: destroy the Time Lords and exterminate the humans. It didn't matter which happened first.

Only the few who were watching the blue box as avidly as the glittering ship saw it break off and speed away, circling the silver mass of the Daleks, turning gold momentarily as they passed into Earth's atmosphere. On the television, it looked like fireworks. On the advanced three-dimensional radar screens at Torchwood Three, it looked like death impending.

"Ianto?" Jack asked.

"Not to worry," Ianto said.

"I'm worrying anyway."

"Me too, sir."

"In possibly our last ten minutes alive I think you can call me Jack, Ianto."

"Not to break up the party," the Doctor interrupted, "but we do have work to do. Ready, Mr. Jones?"

"Ready," Ianto's voice sounded terrified. "All fighters, whatever you see, don't fire until the Daleks reach you."

"Copy."

The Doctor's voice suddenly sounded odd and echoing. "COOO-EE! HEY! DALEKS!"

The descent of the Daleks stopped. 

"HEY! OVER HERE!" Ianto's voice, also strangely reverberating. "TWLL DIN POB DALEKH!"

Jack began to laugh. He couldn't help it. Only Ianto would sail into battle with a warcry in Welsh.

"Arseholes to Daleks?" Gwen asked, disbelieving.

"Look," Tosh said, pointing at the screen.

The Daleks were dividing down the center. The left side were turning left, where a small blue box floated defiantly; the right half were turning to the other TARDIS, Ianto's TARDIS.

"Jack?" Ianto said faintly.

"Yes?" Jack said.

"You get one of the hearts anyway."

There was a click, and the TARDIS went off-comm. Something blipped on the radar screen. The Dalek force seemed to ripple. On the television it looked like a school of silver fishes, suddenly changing direction.

The Daleks opened fire.


	5. Homeward Bound

_And one to the other, you'll hear them all say_  
 _Goodbye fare ye well, Goodbye fare ye well,_  
 _Here comes our young Jacky with eighteen months pay_  
 _Hurrah, me boys, we're homeward bound_

Daleks are intelligent, in some sense; they are self-aware in a way, and can plan for a future, act on orders, make simple decisions. What they are not is _clever_.

An old tactic from the Time Wars would not have worked on Daleks of the day, who were used to the way Time Lords did battle. This new generation, however, had never faced down more than one Time Lord at a time, and did not know.

Daleks will always fix on either the closest or most threatening target first. In a two-TARDIS situation, they split evenly. Those on one side targeted the signature of the Doctor's TARDIS, callsign Small Blue Box. Those on the other side targeted the signature of the second TARDIS, designated by military forces in the area variously as "Ye fucking Gods", "What the hell is that", and TORCHWOOD-3.

In the last second before the Daleks opened fire, the pair of TARDIS space-ships winked out of time for just a moment, and reappeared on the opposite sides of the massive sea of Daleks in the air. The Daleks obediently turned, following their targets, and opened fire directly into each other.

The Doctor's TARDIS, piloted by a Time Lord of great experience and skill, dodged the stray fire that managed not to hit another Dalek. 

As bits and pieces of Dalek began to fall out of the sky and the battle thinned, the fighters closing below to wipe out the survivors saw a bolt of red light land just below the nose of the other TARDIS, tipping it up and sending it spinning towards the Earth.

Jack's comm clicked on.

"This is Ianto Jones," said a very faint voice. "Beware of falling debris. Ground forces, get everyone inside and under strong reinforcement. Torchwood, stand down and take cover."

"Ianto?" Jack called. "Are you all right?"

"No, sir, thank you," Ianto replied. "I think the ship's about done for."

"The ship is falling!" a voice called. "Mr. Jones, can you eject?"

"Wouldn't know how," Ianto's voice. "I think I can control the crash. Transmitting coordinates now."

"IANTO," Jack shouted. 

"Better get moving, sir. Might survive the crash," Ianto said cheerfully. 

"Doctor?"

"I'm still dancing with some Daleks," the Doctor said. "Mr. Jones?"

"Stand fast, Doctor," Ianto called. 

"Copy, Mr. Jones," the Doctor replied, but there was nobody in Torchwood Three to hear him. Jack, Owen, Tosh, and Gwen were running for the surface, Tosh consulting the coordinates she'd scribbled on her hand.

"He's coming down near the airport," she said, as they piled into Gwen's car. Gwen tossed Jack the keys and the car screamed onto the road. 

"Ianto, still there?" Jack asked. "We're coming for you."

"Slowing descent. Much appreciated," Ianto said. "Impact in four."

"Keep talking," Jack said.

"And say what?" Ianto asked, sounding amused. "Doctor, how's the fight?"

"Blown out of the sky," a different voice answered.

"Who said that?" the Doctor demanded.

"Wing Commander Peterson out of RAF Cottesmore," came the apologetic answer.

"Well, what he said," the Doctor sighed.

"Impact in three," Ianto said. "Well done, Doctor."

"Mr. Jones, Torchwood two and five are standing down," said a female voice.

"Jack, could you take me off comm?" Ianto asked.

"Working on it," Jack said. Gwen gave him a nod. "Thank you, Torchwood, servicemen, officers. Stand down. Mind the debris." Another nod. "Okay, Ianto. Everything's taken care of."

"Good. I'm setting the TARDIS to return to Torchwood if it can after the impact. No need to make a mess in the countryside."

"Stop being compulsive, kiss-arse," Owen said.

"Yes, big brother," Ianto replied. "Impact in two. I'm taking communications down. I don't think you'll want to hear the crash from the inside."

"Ianto, don't -- " Jack said, but the click was final and terrible. He wasn't sure Gwen's car was capable of breaking the sound barrier but he was going to give it his best.

They were close enough by the time the ship came down to see it fall; a great cloud of earth flew up and the shockwave rocked the car up onto two wheels for a second. Jack pulled the wheel around and got it rolling on all four again, bouncing across the uneven Welsh countryside.

Even as they approached, the ship shimmered and seemed to shrink; it disappeared entirely as a speck on the horizon coalesced into a furiously spinning blue police public call box.

Jack stopped the car and dropped to the wet turf, running towards a dark figure that was miraculously staggering towards them, clutching his stomach.

Owen ran ahead of Jack, carrying his medical kit; he reached Ianto and shoved him to the ground, beginning to staunch the blood (oh god the blood so much blood so much human-looking blood) with a wad of gauze. Jack slid down next to him.

"Hey, hero," he said. 

"Jack," Ianto grunted, tilting his head back. "Doctor says we won?"

"Ask him yourself," Jack said, as the Doctor arrived. 

"His stomach's in the wrong place," Owen said. "I'm not sure how to fix it."

"Don't," Ianto said, groping for Jack's hand. He grimaced. "It's all right."

"Yes, let's just leave you to die," Owen spat, still working. The Doctor shoved him firmly but gently away.

"He's not going to die," he said. 

Owen threw his gauze down. "Nobody ever does!"

The Doctor took Ianto's other hand, gripping it tightly.

"Know what to do this time?" he asked. Ianto shook his head. "All right. I'll stay with you. It hurts. Just concentrate. Your body knows how."

"What?" Gwen asked. 

"This is neat!" the Doctor said. "Pay attention, class."

Ianto screamed as his skin began to glow. His hand tightened on Jack's hard enough to hurt. Then, hard enough to break bones.

"Ah ah ah!" the Doctor said. "Stop fighting it, you'll hurt your puppy."

"Puppy?" Jack asked. "Excuse me?"

"Oooz a fuzzy puppy?" the Doctor said. Ianto laughed hysterically. The laughter turned into a howl of pain as he glowed brighter than Jack could look at. He turned away but held on; he could feel bones shifting under Ianto's skin. He looked at the Doctor, whose face was illuminated with the light.

Then, faster than he could blink, it was over. The light winked out, and all he could hear was Ianto's breathing, deep but even. He looked down.

Ianto was still flat on his back, but instead of an arched back with his head tilted against the ground he was lying peacefully, looking up at the sky. And it was his face -- Ianto's face, his real face -- doing the looking.

"Well, it's not the face I'd have gone for, but nil desperandum. At least it's familiar," the Doctor said. Ianto blinked and smiled, blissfully.

"It's mine," he said, as they helped pull him to his feet. "Is the energy...thing..."

The Doctor shook his head. "Not if I do this. Stop him if he tries to punch me," he said to Owen.

"Stop who if -- HEY WOAH," Owen said, as the Doctor pulled Ianto forward and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Jack surged up and Owen shoved him away, into Gwen's restraining arms. 

The Doctor released Ianto's head and Ianto jerked backwards, which was gratifying to Jack, who found that he wanted to punch both of them for various reasons.

"Heeewwoow!" The Doctor shook his head. "Buzzy. And...swallow..."

He gulped, shook himself again, and spat.

"That ought to take care of it," he said. "Fun! I haven't done that in centuries. Oouw, come on, Jack. He's practically a relation! It meant nothing."

"You..." Jack pointed at him. "You."

Jack darted forward, _pulling Gwen with him,_ and the Doctor tried to jerk back. He wasn't fast enough, and Jack tackled him to the ground in a bearhug, pounding on his shoulders.

"You were _genius!_ " Jack crowed. The Doctor began to laugh. Gwen fell off Jack and Tosh sagged to the ground; Owen dropped down as well, flinging the bloody bandages aside. Only Ianto remained standing, while Jack rolled onto the grass and continued to laugh.

He looked up at Ianto, the Ianto they'd had, staring out across the landscape. Always set a little apart from the others, hanging back where they leapt in, retiring to a corner when he wasn't needed. The wind blew around his body, ruffling his hair, whipping the corners of the torn and bloody shirt he wore. 

Then Ianto looked skyward, where flakes of metal were beginning to drift down. He smiled faintly, a smile the Doctor sometimes used. 

Life with a Time Lord. Never boring.

***

_Sometimes I forget to tell you_  
 _I can't promise that I won't_  
 _If I forget to say I love you_  
 _It don't mean I don't_

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked on his feet, walked around the TARDIS, and touched the door.

"Well, it's classy," he said. "Can you open it?"

"There's a trick," Ianto replied, pulling on the small metal handle at the same time as he kicked the corner of the door. It swung open and the Doctor stepped inside, disappearing as the door shut behind him. Gwen peered through the glass, but all that stared back at her was a public telephone.

"Why'd you pick a telephone box?" the Doctor asked from inside, his voice muffled.

"Unobtrusive," Ianto replied. The door opened and the Doctor emerged.

"Not in the middle of an office," he said.

"It is in this office," Ianto answered.

"Yes, I take your point."

"Besides, I always liked red phoneboxes," Ianto said. "What do you think?"

"Well, it's got some serious damage, but it's still ticking right along. It needs plenty of repairs, though."

"I have time," Ianto said, looking down at his shoes. The Doctor tipped his chin up.

"You do, and you don't," he said. 

"Gwen," Jack said, tugging her away. "I think there's something we should look at over here."

"You don't have to..." Ianto started, but Jack had already firmly led Gwen and the others to the far side of the hub.

"If you stay here I can't leave a TARDIS with Torchwood," the Doctor continued. "Too much temptation, even for you. _Can_ you even stay here? Knowing as much as you know? You're very human, but you aren't one of them, either. That's the pain of it."

Ianto shrugged. He was aware that he looked like a child doing it, but he felt like one too.

"You could come with me," the Doctor said. "See the wonders of the universe. Learn who you are, where you came from. Learn to understand time."

"Like Jack did?" Ianto asked.

"Jack could never understand what we can. That's not an insult -- no, it's not. Look in your hearts and tell me it's not true. He's a human -- smarter than most, but he just hasn't the capacity. You know that. You know that now you'll always be faster, smarter than they are."

"I could be human again."

"Could you, I wonder."

"You could make me human again."

"And you'd get what, fifty more years out of life?"

"You can't have it both ways, Doctor," Ianto said bitterly. "If I'm faster, smarter or whatnot, then I'm not human. If I think like a human, then I am one."

"You're the only other there is," the Doctor said, sounding almost desperate. "And you want me to just...leave you here?"

Ianto studied his shoes again.

"Am I?" he asked finally. "During the war they sent children to the countryside to keep them safe. What if the Time Lords did the same? Packed children into TARDISes and sent them all over space and time. Are you going to go round finding them and collecting them up? Sorry, but I don't see you doing that, Doctor. You're not the type."

"You are, though."

"Yes, and maybe..." Ianto touched the edge of the phone box. It was warm under his hand. "Maybe when I fix my ship and when I want to know more, I'll go looking. Maybe there was a list somewhere. Some method to finding them. I don't even know my own name. Maybe I can find that. But it's not your place to take my TARDIS from me or tell me where I go or don't go. And I want to stay here."

The Doctor looked away. "With Captain Jack."

"Yes. And my friends. This isn't just your adopted planet. It's mine too. More mine than yours, really."

He glanced up at the Doctor without lifting his head. 

The Doctor was smiling.

"Mr. Jones, you would have been something to see on Gallifrey," he said. "I think we would have been good friends."

"We still can be, Doctor. We have a lot in common."

They both looked at Jack, who flushed and turned away from watching them. 

"When you do make it -- up there," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes upwards. "Give us a ring, will you?"

"The callbox goes both ways. If you get lonely," he said cautiously.

The Doctor's smile faded. "Yeah. Maybe."

Ianto shook his head. "It was certainly interesting meeting you, Doctor."

"Likewise, Mr. Jones."

Ianto offered his hand, and the Doctor took it; as they shook a single image passed from one to the other. The stars glittering above Gallifrey, their constellations bright and vivid.

And back, another message; _thank you._

"I'll let myself out. I'm not one for long goodbyes," the Doctor said, ducking through the doorway. 

Ianto passed through Torchwood, back to where the others were pretending to make conversation.

"I'm staying," he said. 

Gwen hugged him and Owen punched him affectionately (in the kidney, affection notwithstanding) and Tosh rubbed his arm. He looked over Gwen's head at Jack, who was smiling hesitantly. 

"Did you mean it about the heart?" Jack asked. 

***

_Oh but you're lovely, with your smile so warm_  
 _And your lips so soft_  
 _There is nothing for me_  
 _But to love you_  
 _Just the way you look tonight_

At eight forty-two pm, Jack sent the team home. 

Ianto said he would leave as soon as he'd finished securing the TARDIS; instead, from eight forty-five until nine-fifteen he tidied the meeting room and collated Owen's medical reports, then washed the windows on the TARDIS with glass cleaner. It seemed to appreciate it.

He put Myfanwy's dinner out and made a shopping list: new shirt, two new ties, loaf of bread, tea, and oranges. Perhaps he wouldn't tempt fate by going shopping tomorrow, but someone would need to do it eventually.

At nine twenty-two he was startled to hear music. At first he wondered if it was some side-effect of everything that had happened, but then he realised it was coming from loudspeakers Owen had mounted on the upper-level railings ages ago. He stepped into the center of the hub, looking up. Fred Astaire?

Jack stepped out from behind Tosh's darkened computer station, the consoles bluelighting his skin briefly.

"Hi," he said.

"Jack," Ianto replied. Jack kept moving forward, until they were standing -- oh, very close.

"I have it on good authority," Jack said, "that Time Lords love to dance."

"Wouldn't know," Ianto answered. Jack held up his hand, invitingly. Ianto took it. There didn't seem to be anything else to do, really.

No, that wasn't true. He took Jack's hand because he wanted to. 

At nine twenty-three, as they were moving just slightly to the music, Jack pulled him closer and kissed him. 

"You seem to be enjoying it," Jack said.

Ianto consciously tilted his head, so that the clock on the wall was not in his line of sight. Jack didn't notice, or if he did, didn't care; his hands were sliding up Ianto's arms, pulling his tie off, popping the buttons on the fresh shirt he'd put on (it belonged to Jack anyway). Palms flat on his chest, Jack felt for the double-heartbeat. He couldn't be doing anything else, even if he was kissing him as he did it.

Ianto pulled back a little, smiling.

"I only get one?" Jack asked.

"Yes," Ianto said. "The left one."

"Who gets the right one?"

"I'm afraid the right one belongs to Wales, sir."

Jack laughed so hard he fell down.

END

* * *

**Musical Credits:**  
June Tabor and Maddy Prior, "What Will We Do"  
Unknown (?), "The Old Churchyard"  
Chris Smither, "Leave The Light On"  
Pete Morton, "In Another Life" and "The Two Brothers"  
Coope  & Boyes, "Unison In Harmony"  
Martin Carthy, "The Funeral Song"  
Dorothy Elliot, "Some Old Salty"  
Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marchin"  
Chumbawamba, "Smith & Taylor"  
June Tabor, "A Place Called England"  
David Jones, "We Have Fed Our Sea"  
Finest Kind, "Going To The West"  
Devil's Interval, "The Well Below The Valley"  
Irish Descendants, "The Mary Ellen Carter"  
Traditional, "The Wren Song" (Welsh Variant)  
Waterson-Carthy, "Goodbye, Fare Ye Well"  
The Furie Brothers, "If I Don't Say I Love You"  
Fred Astaire, "Just The Way you Look Tonight"


End file.
